


Ever Welcome

by charcoalcas



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, North Carolina, Pre-Season/Series 10, Pre-Series Dean Winchester, Season/Series 10, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-23
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-25 11:19:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3808396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charcoalcas/pseuds/charcoalcas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas is dying and thinks Dean is dead. He asks Hannah for one last hour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ever Welcome

Black Mountain is the kind of sleepy Appalachian town that normally has Dean dizzy and reaching for his keys, but there’s always work to be done in this stretch of the states, so he had pulled off the interstate at the first lodging sign he saw after the road had started to blur and checked into the North Creek Inn.

The town is just as picture book as he remembered even in the late night darkness, but faded and worn around the edges. Enough vestiges of a simpler time are still filling the streets for it to toe the line between creepy and quaint, not helped by it being the kind of small town where people smile and said “hey, neighbor” to every stranger they pass on Main Street. It's dishonest; Dean knows they’ve got torches and pitchforks next to their Good Books just like every other town like it on the map. 

There are at least enough deadbeat poets and artists left over and pining for the days from Black Mountain’s attempt to revolutionize that he can find some quiet places tucked away from all that, places where the stale candy coating has been scrubbed away to show the place’s tired core. The streets are empty and smell like smoke and it’s perpetually overcast; a Hollywood set, abandoned and collecting dust. Towns like this always felt lost in time somehow, existing in-between and filled with the kind of ghosts Dean can’t hunt.

The grits are okay, though, which is why Dean finds himself awake before noon and sitting in the motel’s spoon, greasy even by his standards. Syrup drips onto the crinkled atlas spread across the table when he holds the fork in the air too long, busy highlighting a route taking him somewhere in Virginia. The marker’s half-dead, and when he shakes it to try to bring some ink to the tip, the pancake on his fork falls limply onto Illinois.

"Here."

Dean nearly jumps out of his skin, fork clattering to the table. 

“Jesus,” he snaps, glaring up at the man suddenly looming over him and holding out a highlighter. ”Taking southern hospitality to a new level there, buddy.”

The man frowns at him, his blue eyes crystalline in the early morning sunlight spilling through the murky, unwashed windows. “Don’t you need it?”

Dean doesn’t answer, just watches him for a few moments before snatching the marker from the guy’s hand and pulling the cap off with his teeth, drawing a messy loop around Roanoke. When the man doesn’t move, Dean glances up and says, “Thanks.”

But still the man stands, so Dean sets the highlighter down and turns in his seat to look up at him, stretching his lips across his teeth into a smile that is both charming and predatory, a Winchester classic. “Can I help you with something?” 

Worst-case scenario, he kicks this guy’s ass and gets thrown out without a banana pudding to go. Best-case scenario, this guy is as oblivious as he looks and Dean can make a few bucks off of him, one way or another.

"May I?" The man nods to the opposite side of the booth. 

Dean appraises him. He's tall, a little rumpled and scowly, and there's a stain on his white shirt under his ugly coat that could be either ketchup or blood. He's handsome too, which is something Dean allows himself to think because his dad might not even be on the same continent anymore, with a strong, stubbly jaw and straight nose leading down to pink, chapped lips that are parted slightly as the guy's gaze burns a trail down Dean, probably sizing him up too. He's giving off serious stranger in a strange land vibes, but nothing that feels immediately threatening.

Curious, Dean nods, pulling his coffee and breakfast plates out of the way as the man slides in, neatly rearranging his overcoat and blinking owlishly at Dean.

Dean ignores him, scraping hash brown onto his fork and checking his phone. Still nothing from Dad. It’s not like he's heard much from him since that first year that Sam was gone, but he still sends cases Dean’s way every now and then, sometimes just coordinates. Dean chases after them like a goddamned retriever let off the leash, just like Sam predicted.

Ugh. Dean rubs his eyes and reaches for his coffee, only to find that it’s gone, held in the hands of the stranger across from him who’s sipping at it demurely as he peers over the scattered papers on missing persons and everything that had met Dean’s “freak death” query at the library. In other words, everything necessary to make Dean look like the world’s sloppiest serial killer. He hastily gathers them up and stuffs them into a pile next to him on the seat, snapping, “Mom and Dad never teach you not to snoop? Or steal people’s coffee?”

A smile quirks the man’s mouth, but he has the decency to duck his head and look embarrassed. ”Apologies. I would be happy to get my own.”

"Whatever, you can have it," Dean says, rolling his eyes and stuffing the last of his pancakes into his mouth. "Probably germed it up anyway."

It’s quiet for a few minutes, and Dean is hyper-aware that the dude is staring him down as he highlights a new route taking him to Missouri. Was the coffee thing some kind of power play? Is this guy one of those customers? Dean subtly shifts his leg so his knee bumps against the guy’s thigh, but the guy doesn’t reciprocate or proposition him. He flushes lightly and scoots his legs away. Huh.

"Alright, pal, what do you want?" Dean leans back in the booth, trying not to get panicky about how weird this situation is. Why had he even let the guy sit down?

"I don’t want anything," the man replies, voice raked over hot coals. "Just your company, if that’s alright."

"My company?” Dean asks, confused. This guy had nearly curled into a ball from Dean’s knee - so what was this? Did he get off on abstaining? Staring? Drinking other people's coffee? “My company, like…” Dean makes a crude gesture and the man’s eyes practically bulge out of their sockets.

"No!" he says, face flushing as he covers it with a hand, squeezing his temples. A beat, and he’s looking at Dean again, the wind blown out of his sails, his voice quiet and all stilted formality lost. "You just remind me of someone I used to know."

And it's like a curtain has been lifted and Dean can see how tired he is. His coat is tattered and stained, lips too pale and dry, shoulders slumped, his eyes sunken in and bruised underneath like a good night’s sleep is as unfamiliar to him as it is to Dean. So, not a lonely two pump chump looking for something with a pulse. Just a weird guy barging into his personal space and drinking his coffee because of… nostalgia? Socially awkward pining?

It’s too human to seem normal to Dean. Christ, he needs a vacation.

At Dean’s silence, the man sighs and lifts an eyebrow. He folds his hands in his lap, watching Dean carefully before turning to look out the window at the sprawl of blue mountains, their tops hidden by morning fog that blurs into the sky. Eventually, he turns and confesses, “I don’t have much time left.”

He says it like he’s reciting the day’s forecast, and it makes the drop Dean’s stomach takes to his ankles that much worse. “Well, shit, sh- should- do you want me to get you some waffles, or- ?”

Dean’s stammering is cut off by the man’s deep laughter, which is as sudden as it is brief, quickly turned into coughs that sound like they’ve been dragged kicking and screaming from his lungs. Dean picks awkwardly at clumps of congealed syrup on the table as the man comes back to himself, breath a little rattled.

"Just tell me about yourself."

"Tell you about myself," Dean repeats. The man nods. Dean grins and drapes an arm over the back of his seat. "Well, I’m gonna need a name before we skip the good stuff and get straight to the pillow talk."

The man smiles down at his stolen coffee. “Cas,” he offers, peeking shyly up at Dean. “Just Cas.”

"Just Cas," Dean repeats again. "Like, just Cher?"

The man waits a moment, then nods.

"Well, Cas, I’m Dean." Dean sits up to extend a hand over the table which the man is slow to accept. His palm is warm and clammy when he does.

"Hello, Dean."

It’s familiar, somehow, those few seconds existing out of time like everything else in this hooptie of a town. They fall into conversation easily, like a dream.

——

Cas is weird, but he’s also kind of cute? After talking their way through books and TV, Cas asks what year it is, nodding seriously when Dean says “2003,” and adds that he likes Dean’s hair. Dean’s been growing it out since he and Dad parted ways. With pink-tipped ears, Dean returns the compliment, and actually means it. Cas’ hair, despite the neat haircut and what looks like an attempt at combing, is thick and ruffled. Dean catches himself wondering what it would feel like in his hands, to grip it and tug it, and after Cas says Dean’s hair reminds him of Dr. Sexy’s, Dean’s thoughts jump straight to hand holding and flower picking. A subject change is in order, so he asks Cas what brings him to the Blue Ridge instead of for his hand in marriage.

Cas says he’s here in the hopes of seeing the monarch migration out on the parkway. Dean didn’t even know there was such a thing, but is distraught at the idea of Cas missing it. When Cas smiles and assures him that he’ll make it, Dean finds himself wanting to see it too.

Dean skirts around answering why he’s slinking around outside of Asheville, but it seems to amuse Cas instead of annoy him, so he relaxes and orders him another coffee.

They don’t talk about why Cas is dying, or who Cas is looking for when he watches Dean. They don’t talk about how Dean keeps slipping up and ogling Cas’ mouth, either, or how his heart jackknifes up his throat every time Cas smiles.

Cas asks him where he’s headed after this, and Dean shrugs and says he’s thinking about Virginia, maybe Illinois. Something passes over Cas’ face at this, indiscernible and heavy enough for Dean to feel its weight for the few seconds it’s there. But then it’s gone, slate wiped clean, and Cas is pouring cream into his coffee and asking Dean what makes him happy.

"Uh," Dean busies himself with stuffing his atlas into his backpack, hoping that Cas will take a hint and ask a simpler question, but isn’t surprised when he looks back up and Cas is watching him, patiently waiting. "Driving, I guess."

"Driving?"

"Yeah, driving my car down the highway. Windows down, music loud. Just me and the road, you know?” Dean smiles, though it’s half-hearted. The past two years have been as lonely as they’ve been good, but they’re better than anything he’s had before. He’s done a lot of good, at least. Saved a lot of people. That’s what matters. “Nothing else. That’s all I need, anyway."

Cas nods as their waitress appears, like this answer makes sense, waiting until she tops off his coffee and sets down the breakfast bill to ask, “All you need, or all you know?”

The bell above the door a few tables away jingles as a small family crowds in. Two kids race down the aisle past Dean and Cas to claim a booth’s window seats and play tic-tac-toe on a napkin, their parents tired when the waitress greets them but smiling when high-pitched accusations of cheating float across the room.

Dean scratches his nose and looks down at the bill. "All I deserve.”

Cas’ face crumbles, but it’s just another day that ends in Y. 

"Dean," Cas starts, reaching for Dean’s hand, but the bell above the door jingles again, and soon a woman is breezing past the waitress and coming to a stop to stare down at their table, not unlike Cas had just an hour ago.

"Castiel," she says, and Dean looks over to see both of his hands returned to his lap, his shoulders considerably more slumped. "We’re going to be late for the appointment." 

She raises her eyebrows and looks at Cas significantly, and something is communicated between them before Cas says, “I understand. I’ll be out in a few minutes, Hannah.”

It’s only then that she looks down at Dean, her already present (maybe permanent?) look of disapproval deepening so quickly that Dean isn’t sure whether he should run or laugh. She’d be cute if she wasn’t looking at Dean like he was a bug skittering around on the floor begging to be stepped on, but Dean’s used it to it, and he can’t say he blames her. He shrugs his jacket higher up on his shoulders, gaze dropping to the table.

"You’re—" she begins, accusatory, but Castiel cuts her off. Dean finishes her sentence a hundred different ways in his head.

"Hannah," Cas says, careful enough to make Dean nervous. "This is Dean."

When Cas says his name, Dean can hear him smiling that small, gentle smile that makes Dean’s stomach flip like pancakes. He doesn’t have to look up to know Hannah is still staring at him; he can feel it, like lightning struck the earth when she walked in and they’re all holding their breaths and counting as they wait for the next roll of thunder.

The quiet clinking of silverware and slow southern chatter seems to return only when Hannah finally moves her stare, so eerily reminiscent of Cas and yet nothing like him at all, to Cas, who looks sheepish.

“The appointment, Castiel,” she insists, subtle as a gun. “We’re going to miss it.”

“I know.” His hand is on his face again, his voice like a house of cards collapsed on itself. “Can you wait in the car? I’ll be there soon.”

Hannah frowns like there’s a lot she wants to say, but nods, turning on her heel to walk back out the door, bell jingling behind her.

"Jeez," Dean exhales, leaning over the table to watch her march into the parking lot. "From the vibes she was giving off, I’m guessing ex-wife or librarian."

Cas chuckles, deflating. “Close. Hannah's my sister.”

"Ah," Dean says, sitting back in his seat. "I got one just like that, only a brother. He’s very proud of the stick up his ass, took it all the way to California."

"I’m sure he will come back to you," Cas consoles, painfully sincere. They exchange poor attempts at smiles and fall into silence.

Cas works on finishing the last of his (Dean’s) coffee as Dean thumbs through his wallet, letting out a contented sigh when he sets the cup on the table and messily wipes at his mouth with the back of a hand. Dean’s throat tightens, and he hates himself.

He’s known this guy, this weird, dorky little guy in a dirty trench coat currently focused on moving stray sugar crystals on the grimy tabletop into some weird shape, for an hour tops, but he’s desperate, suddenly, for this conversation to keep going.

"Cas," Dean says, almost pleadingly, and Cas stills. "What makes you happy?”

Cas sighs slowly through his nose and slouches back against his seat, looking out the window at the rising sun. The earlier fog has lifted, and the mountains’ blue has deepened in the daylight against the robin’s eggshell of the open sky, clear except for a few white curls of cloud. It’s beautiful, as if a tiny scrap of earth has been left untouched. 

"This," Cas finally answers, the earth and sky reflected together in the blue of his heavy gaze when he turns to Dean. "Sitting here, with you, having coffee."

The plates and silverware rattle when Cas slides gracelessly out of the booth, and he’s almost past Dean when his brain finally unclenches and he’s lurching to grab onto Cas to stop him, to beg him to stay.

Cas looks down at where Dean is holding onto his wrist like he’s trying to be an anchor to a ship that he can’t see, that’s been sinking since six years from this day, every touch and smile and choked I need you that followed cannon blows to his side.

“Who is it?” Dean asks, words rushing from his throat like a levee has broken, and in his voice Castiel would happily drown. “That I remind you of?”

“A friend,” Cas answers, gently pulling his wrist from Dean’s grip. “Whom I love very much.”

The bell jingles and Dean can’t turn to watch him go.

He jumps when a cool palm slides over his forehead, the placemat menus and blue mountains sliding together and slipping away no matter how tightly he holds on. He smells what he thinks is myrrh as a woman whispers something that sounds a lot like "sorry.”

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on tumblr. inspired by johnny cash's definition of paradise ("this morning, with her, having coffee."), title taken from "blue ridge mountains" by fleet foxes.


End file.
